


Five times Patrick Brewer hiked that mountain

by therapychicken



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: I stand behind every word of my description of how Patrick would propose to Rachel, M/M, Patrick Brewer backstory, Patrick has been going to that mountain to hike since he was a kid AU, Season/Series 03, Season/Series 05, but nothing that groundbreaking, first thing I ever wrote for this fandom, lots of season 5 allusions because that's when i wrote it, minimally edited since then, patrick pov, so be gentle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-18
Updated: 2020-05-18
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:34:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24256717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/therapychicken/pseuds/therapychicken
Summary: Exactly what it says on the tin.Patrick has been up that mountain before, but by time #5, something is different.
Relationships: Patrick Brewer/David Rose
Comments: 6
Kudos: 79





	Five times Patrick Brewer hiked that mountain

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first thing I ever wrote for this fandom and, as I prepared to dig up my in-progress AU, I found this hidden and decided that publishing it would make me feel productive, so I'm doing it. May add a +1, to further follow the trope, if the inspiration strikes me. I have gotten somewhat, though not that much, better at writing since I wrote this, and edited it only minimally (and added two sentences), so caveat emptor. 
> 
> Let me know if it was worth releasing into the wild!

1:

Patrick and his dad went camping every year right before school started, but he was starting to think that this might be his favorite hike that they'd done. 

Sure, it was way back in a far-away corner of the province, surrounded by ramshackle houses and sleazy motels and the kind of tiny mom-and-pop businesses that were becoming rare in his own suburb. But to him this was a plus. The campsite may have been paved and fully hooked up to electricity, with hot showers and a non-encrusted grill pit, and the trails may have been fully marked out by the provincial park authorities, but still, there was something satisfyingly remote about this particular path, surrounded by trees on all sides, not a sound to be heard besides your own hiking boots as they padded through the dirt and leaves. The view at the top was something else as well- not a building to be seen for miles and miles, and the arcing of the hawks in the sky, cawing as they soared through the air, made him feel as free and light as they were. 

At the top of the cliff, Patrick and his dad were settled in with some provisions- beef jerky and potato chips that they'd picked up from a rest area on the way to the campsite, washing it down with some water from their canteens- and staring up at the sky. A hawk flew past, and looked like it was nearly going to land on the cliff, to Patrick's delight- and then disappointment when it flew off. 

"That was an osprey," said Patrick's dad from alongside him. "You can tell by the fact that the wings make an 'M' shape." Patrick nodded, only half listening. The kind of bird wasn't really the point to him, just its wild, swooping freedom. 

Soon the sun began to set and the hawks seemed to be settling in for the night. The mosquitoes began to buzz around Patrick and his dad as they lay back on their blankets, staring into the orangey-purple light of the sky. 

"So, Patrick, this year is a big year for you," his dad began hopefully. Patrick sighed. This was yet another yearly ritual, them sitting in some provincial park and his dad giving him a pep talk for the coming school year. Last time it had had... sex stuff in it, or as his dad had mumblingly called it "the changes in his body," and that had been embarrassing, with him constantly swiveling his head around to make sure nobody else was around. Hopefully this one would be less horrible. 

"Yeah, I guess," he replied. Better to get it over with.

"Grade eight! It's a big year! Last year before high school!" Patrick's dad turned to look him in the eye, and Patrick could see that he was actually excited for him- and couldn't help but feel a warm feeling in his chest. "You're going to knock it out of the park, kiddo. Are you going to stay on the baseball team?" 

"Yeah, I think so. Coach said if I keep doing well then he'll recommend me to the high school coach as well, and then maybe I won't have to try out next year." This was something about school that genuinely excited Patrick. Not that he really had a problem with anything at school- classes themselves were all right, he didn't get in TOO much trouble, he had a really good group of friends- but baseball was his thing.

"That's great, Pat. You know that makes me feel proud." Patrick's dad kept smiling, but the look around his eyes became a bit more discomfited. Ah, here it goes... "So, ah, Patrick, you know I wouldn't bring this up, except that your mom always wants to know and I figured you'd rather have this talk man to man, you know..." He trailed off, and Patrick nodded shortly. If this conversation had to happen, now was probably the least awful time. He would have preferred to wait until they were eating roasted marshmallows around the campfire, though. Then he could shove one in his mouth occasionally in order to avoid answering the more awkward questions. 

"I hear that a few of your friends have... girlfriends already!" said his dad in an overly-jolly tone. "Are you interested in any girls at school? I remember that they all seemed very nice, when you would have people over to study, or from your birthday parties..."

Had anyone? He really didn't know, maybe. He just didn't think so much about girls, at least not nearly as much as his friends did. They were... fine? He had a few good friends who were girls, but not that many. They were just part of the crowd for him, while for a lot of his friends they were practically some kind of obsession. So he shrugged and said, uncomfortably, "I don't know..."

Did his dad's face seem to fall a bit? Patrick racked his brains to try to come up with something more... manly and confident to say. There was that girl Rachel in the other grade seven class, with the long hair in that really cool shade of red, who Jake SWORE he'd seen dropping that anonymous valentine in his box last year. She seemed okay. Maybe he could mention that? Would that make him feel better?

But Patrick's dad's face quickly cleared and he said, "fine, fine, that's exactly right for a boy your age. No need to rush into anything like that, you have your whole life to meet people and be in relationships and even fall in love, eh? Play baseball, do your schoolwork, have fun with your friends, the rest will fall in your lap when you're ready. Just remember-" and here his face became more serious- "if there's anything you EVER want to tell your mom and me about yourself, stuff going on at school, life in general... you know that we love you more than anything else in the world, so please tell us if there is ever anything that you think we should know, especially if it's something that we can help with." 

Patrick nodded. His dad said this every year, practically word for word, and Patrick was pretty sure that he meant it. He stared at the sky as one last osprey soared overhead. 

"And of course, you are FAR too young to have sex, but when that comes in to the equation you had better come speak with me or your mom about it."

With a groan, Patrick rolled over and covered his ears, only just hearing the echoing of his dad's sudden laughter. 

2:

It was Patrick's first solo hike. He'd only had his license for a week or two, and besides for a few trips to the supermarket for his mom, this was his first big drive alone. He knew that his mom had been a bit reluctant to let him drive such a long distance, but his dad, in the end, had been the one to remind her that Patrick was a safe driver, that it was one straight stretch of highway the whole way there, and that he was sure that Patrick would be responsible and be back before curfew, right, Patrick?

So now Patrick's car was parked at the trail head and he was lying on a blanket at the top of the mountain, watching the hawks. If you'd asked him what had made him decide to do this on his last day of summer vacation before beginning grade twelve, he wouldn't have been able to tell you. He could have been organizing starting rosters and tryout times for the baseball team, or finishing up his last summer reading book, or hanging out with Rachel. They'd been dating for nearly a year, and he really liked her. She was sweet, funny, kind, and pretty, and guys would mutter about how lucky he was to "score" with her, and he supposed that that meant that his life was pretty great. And it was! Rachel would be applying to the same universities as him, and hopefully they'd be able to stay together through that, because he really enjoyed hanging around with her. He couldn't have wished for a better girlfriend.

He was very aware, though, that he wasn't having nearly the same feelings for Rachel that his friends had for their girlfriends. For them, it seemed passionate, full of constant physical contact and touching. He and Rachel would do that too, cuddling together at a movie night or holding hands in the halls, but Patrick did that more because Rachel liked it, and because he knew it was part of what made relationships. But he never had any real compulsion to touch her, to kiss her, or... anything else, really. They did all that, and it was fine, but it never felt like something he needed to do viscerally. It was all part of a package deal that came with being with Rachel, he supposed.

And he loved Rachel, that he knew for sure. He'd told her only last week, on their one-year anniversary. She'd said it first, and the look in her eyes was so happy and hopeful that the words had just come spilling out of his own mouth. He would do anything for her, that was for sure. The way that she loved him, admired him, was so thrilled to be with him... He loved seeing her every day, talking to her, trying to make her happy- just as happy as his friends made their girlfriends. He knew there was something missing in the relationship, and he wasn't sure what, but there were so many good things as well, and he knew he needed Rachel in his life.

He sat up on the blanket and grabbed a Hershey bar from the front pocket. As he broke off squares and let them melt luxuriously in his mouth, he remembered the last time he'd seen Rachel- the previous weekend, at Michael's house party. He had still been getting into the swing of things, downing a party shot that tasted like it had a bit more vodka than he was used to, Rachel standing next to him with her hand an irritating weight on his shoulder that he wished he could shrug off, when he'd caught sight of a game of Truth or Dare going on in another corner. The bottle had been spinning and spinning and people had been kissing each other in all of the weirdest combinations. He'd laughed as he'd noticed a few players spinning as calculatedly as possible so that the bottle would land on their significant others, and laughed even harder when others had spun so they would NOT end up with their significant others. Eventually Mike had spun the bottle and it had landed on Jason. The air had seemed to still as everyone had held their breath. With a shared look of comic disgust, Mike and Jason had leaned over into the middle of the circle and had kissed each other. Not much more than a peck on the lips, certainly nothing... intimate. 

Rachel, to his right, had laughed nearly as hard as he himself had laughed five minutes earlier when Shelly had accidentally-on-purpose nudged the bottle so it would land on her boyfriend. Patrick, though... he'd felt almost like something was fitting into place. As everyone else had giggled about what had happened, Patrick had suddenly gotten this weird feeling of... jealousy? Could that be it? The faint buzz of alcohol had been clouding his thoughts, but he'd been pretty sure that if he'd spun the bottle instead of one of them, he would have been happy to do it. He 'd been pretty sure that it would have been at least as good as kissing Rachel- or, if he was being honest with himself, probably better. 

As his last square of chocolate melted, he shook his head. That was a horrible way to think. He was happy with Rachel, and what was the point of going down a road he didn't entirely understand anyway. Better to just go home and talk to Rachel, maybe hang out a bit in the mall food court. These thoughts were only coming back into his head because he was by himself, and if he saw Rachel again then he'd definitely remember how much he loved her and why they were so great together. The party had been just a party and he'd been drunk. The whole thing hadn't meant anything at all. 

3:

He knew he could have gotten the ring back, if he'd wanted to. But he was prepared to eat the $5000 it had cost- it was a fucking loser jackass tax, he assumed. 

Why had he ever proposed to her in the first place, he wondered as he strode angrily up the mountain trail. They'd only been back together for six months since their last breakup when he'd proposed. To be fair, that had mostly been due to some well-placed hints from her, that they'd been going back and forth for too long and she just wanted to be SURE of him already. She'd looked worried already then, like something on his face had betrayed how not sure he was of her, but she'd been thrilled when he'd proposed to her, exactly as (her friends had informed him) she'd dreamed of. He'd wondered if the fireworks might not have been a bit much, but he'd rationalized it as there being nothing too good or too much for Rachel. 

Instead, it had obviously been some kind of overcompensation or something. Some way to make sure that she was happy and not seeing the feelings of despair that were welling up in him, to make him more excited about this whole idea of proposing to a woman who he loved but had been growing less and less sure he would want to spend the rest of his life with, to turn the proposal into a big one-day event rather than the first day of the rest of his life. So he'd laid out the rose petals on the beach in the shape of her name, lit the candles, tuned up his guitar, sung her the song that he'd written for the occasion, and at the key moment had knelt down to one knee, small square ring box popped open in his hand, and she had tearfully said yes, of course she would marry him. 

And then had come months and months of planning and budgeting and color schemes and bridesmaids, and he had eagerly said yes, yes, let's do it to every suggestion that came out of Rachel's mouth, hoping that seeing her so happy would somehow make him happy about this wedding and everything that it meant. And he couldn't understand why he wasn't happy. He was going to spend the rest of his life with the woman he loved! They made each other happy, never had a disagreement, prioritized each other's needs. He'd never had any doubt that she loved him, and couldn't understand what was so frustrating. 

Instead, it had all exploded yesterday, a year after the engagement, when he discovered that in fact he didn't want to spend the extra money to get the venue on a holiday weekend, and in fact he didn't want to spend any money at all, because he didn't want to get married at all. Rachel had been irritated more than anything else- she'd thought she'd finally nailed him down after all of those years of on-and-off, and figured he'd come to his senses soon- but his parents had been crushed. He'd gotten all of his stuff from his and Rachel's apartment, spent the night in his childhood bedroom at his parents' house as they'd sat worrying outside, and then, after sleeping in and refusing his mother's offer of some pancakes and a chat, packed up his stuff and put it in the trunk of his car. 

And now, here he was, hiking up the mountain in the late afternoon, just needing the settling feeling of being in that familiar, peaceful place before he went back home and faced the music. He wasn't 100% sure what he'd do- probably just rent another apartment on the other side of town, message his friends that the wedding was off, have a vague discussion with his parents about what had happened, and try to put it all behind him. But for now, all he had to do was take step after heavy step up the mountain, feeling as though each muscle ache and scratch from a tree branch was a punishment for the cruel, cowardly thing he'd just done. It was kind of cathartic, in a way. 

Soon the trail began to level out, the sign that he was near his destination, where he could lay out his blanket and just absorb himself in watching the hawks and the hills. His excitement, however, was soon dashed when he heard some sounds from up ahead. There were glints of bright color visible through the trees, and Patrick just hoped that whoever was there would be leaving soon, so that he could have his nice relaxing afternoon-

But as he got closer, he could hear a man's voice speaking earnestly, and he realized that the bright colors were bunches of balloons, and as he approached the clearing he could hear a woman's voice exclaiming "yes! Of course I'll marry you!" and saw the man get up and envelop the woman in a massive hug, a look of indescribable happiness on his face (because Patrick's life was a badly timed joke)-

And Patrick knew that he couldn't go back home. In all his life he'd never been as happy as that. Never. Not in thirty-plus years in his hometown, living his easy and predictable and well-managed life with a woman he now knew he hadn't really loved. He wanted that happiness, and some instinctive part of him- the kind of instinct that he didn't often bow to- told him that he had to go somewhere new to find it. Anywhere but the place where he had just survived for so many years, rather than really living. He turned around so that he didn't have to see that happy smile for one second longer, and began to walk back down the mountain. The hawks could wait. 

An hour later, he was driving down a local road in one of those little run-down old towns he'd always been amused by as a child when he saw a "room for rent" sign in the window of a building. That would do nicely for just now. He looked curiously at the business sign- signs, now that he was looking properly. This Ray Butani guy seemed to do a lot of stuff. 

4:

He only had a few hours for the hike this time, as he had to get to the local chamber of commerce in time to submit those grant forms before it closed at 5. He was basically jogging up the path this time, so used to the trip up that he was almost instinctively leaping over rocks and past tree roots in his way. He barely felt it, though- his mind was buzzing too fast. 

What had possessed him to join David's business? From a logical perspective, it was a ridiculous move- he had never planned to stay long here in the ludicrously named Schitt's Creek, and now this business would tie him to it; he already had a job working with Ray; he was going to be working with someone who had a cool business idea but absolutely no idea what he was doing and... maybe wasn't the most down to earth person he'd ever met, to put it mildly. David probably wasn't the kind of business partner that his college professors would have approved of-

But then thinking of David made something in him feel... good in a way that he hadn't felt in a long time. Meeting David at the office that first time had just seemed like a breath of fresh air in between filing people's rental paperwork. He was funny, slightly awkward, nervous, a bit irritable, had no clue what he was talking about- he was entertaining, and a challenge, and that one short meeting had left Patrick feeling like he'd had more fun than he'd had in years. He'd given David that card unsure of whether there was any chance of him calling the number on it, but hoping desperately that he would. He could remember his heart falling when he saw the call coming in while he was busy at the birthday party, sure that he had totally missed his shot at talking to David again, but his heart had then risen higher and higher as he saw each successive voicemail come in. And he hadn't laughed as much at anything as he had at those voicemails once he finally got around to listening to them. And David had seemed so flustered, it was really adorable.

For once, Patrick nearly tripped on a tree root. He'd just outright thought of David as adorable. As much as he could claim that he'd made his decision to join up with David because he wanted a challenge, or because he was bored of Ray's office, or because he just really liked Schitt's Creek and didn't want to go home yet, he knew that the reason why he wanted to stay was David, who was frustrating and hilarious and snippy and passionate (that word had a funny ring to it in this context that he wasn't sure he wanted to think about yet) and good-hearted and full of great ideas, and who Patrick wanted to stay as close to as possible because, yes, he was adorable. 

As he approached the top of the cliff, Patrick decided to see what it sounded like to say that out loud. "David is adorable." The act of saying it, hearing the words come out of his mouth and resonate in the air, made his face burn but also made him break out in an uncontrollable smile. David was adorable when he made that hilarious grimace when he was embarrassed, when he sniped at Alexis, when he'd had that slightly flustered, nervous smirk when Patrick had gone back to offer his services at the store... like he was maybe thinking the same thing as Patrick was. Whatever that was.

Was David... interested in him? Like, romantically? 

Was he interested in David, in that way? With all that that, um, entailed?

This was probably something he should have thought about more earlier on, before he had committed to becoming a part of David's business and becoming part of this store that David was so proud of and invested in. Probably hadn't been such a hot idea to jump into partnership before really thinking about this. It meant that, in order not to jeopardize the store, he would have to be very, very certain of what he wanted, and as certain as possible of what David wanted, before he made a move. 

If he made a move. God, this was so weird. He'd never had these thoughts about making a move on a guy, being interested in a guy... he'd have had an easier time believing he was, well, gay (and putting a label on it in his head actually felt kind of good, though maybe he'd sit on it for a bit and see what happened) if he'd had these kinds of feelings about a guy before. But then again, no guy who he'd ever known had been quite like David. No girl he'd known, either. He'd never been the kind of person who liked drama queens; Rachel's laid back personality had always been one of the things he'd liked about her. That she'd demanded so little of him. 

He would bet money that David used more hair products than Rachel did. And way more expensive shampoo and body wash in the shower. The thought made him snicker, then realize that he was about to think about David in the shower, which made his face heat up a bit. 

But what did David think of him, that was the question. David had seemed kind of flustered when he'd gone over to make the investment offer, and he'd had that cute- yes, that really fucking cute nervous smirk the whole time they were talking. If David had been a girl, and the stakes low, Patrick would have called him right then to ask him out. But David was a guy, and the stakes were high. Reading the situation wrong, not being SURE that this was what both of them wanted- that could be a catastrophe. 

At the top of the mountain, Patrick didn't bother to put out the blanket, just sitting on the rock and looking out over the fields. He imagined that he could see Schitt's Creek as one of those towns among the hills and the fields, dotting the landscape, but he had no clue. Might not even be in this direction. 

5: 

As Patrick hugged David tightly at the top of the mountain, he realized that it really had been a long time since he had been there and not known exactly what it was he wanted.


End file.
